Mr Stephen Aiken OBE is the Chief Executive of Dublin City University Educational Trust. Prior to that he was Chief Executive of the British Irish Chamber of Commerce. He holds an MPhil, in International Relations, from the University of Cambridge, an MA from Kings College London and is currently reading for a PhD, again in IR, at Cambridge. With an extensive background in UK government service he was the head of the UK’s Global Strategic Trends programme, responsible for horizon scanning out to 30 years across wide areas of UK policy, including Energy, Food Security, Climate Change, the changing nature of Global Power and developing approaches to advances in technology. He has written extensively on these issues and also on the High North, Europe, South Asia, and on global conflict. Previously he served in the Royal Navy including Commanding Nuclear Submarines, being a Senior Lecturer on Strategy, Security and the International System and has had extensive experience in the Middle East, the Americas, the Polar Regions, South and South East Asia.

Professor John Coakley is a professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin. He is also the founding director and research director of IBIS. He has edited or co-edited: Changing shades of orange and green: redefining the union and the nation in contemporary Ireland (UCD Press, 2002); The territorial management of ethnic conflict (2nd ed., Frank Cass, 2003); From political violence to negotiated settlement: the winding path to peace in twentieth century Ireland (UCDPress, 2004); Politics in the Republic of Ireland (4th ed., Routledge, 2004); and Crossing the Border, New relationships between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (Irish Academic Press, 2007).

Professor David Farrell, MRIA, is a professor in the School of Politics and International Relations, UCD and Director of the Institute for British-Irish Studies. He is a specialist in the study of parties, elections, electoral systems and members of parliament. In 2012 he was elected as President of the Political Studies Association of Ireland, and in 2013 as the Speaker of the Council of the European Consortium for Political Research. He is currently the research director of the Irish Constitutional Convention. Professor Farrell is founding co-editor of Party Politics and a former co-editor of the Oxford University Press series on 'Comparative Politics'. Prior to his move to Dublin, Professor Farrell was professor and head of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester.

Dr Gladys Ganiel is Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation. She has degrees from Providence College (Rhode Island, USA) and University College Dublin, where she earned her doctorate in Politics in 2005. Her primary research interests are religion and conflict, Northern Ireland politics, evangelicalism, congregational studies, qualitative research methods, and religion and transition in South Africa and Zimbabwe. She has authored the book, Evangelicalism and Conflict in Northern Ireland, Palgrave, 2008, and co-authored (with Claire Mitchell) the book, Evangelical Journeys: Choice and Change in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture, UCD Press, 2011. She has also published articles on religion, conflict and reconciliation in journals such as Journal of Peace Research, Democratization, Sociology of Religion, Irish Political Studies, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, and Journal of Religion in Africa.

Her current research focuses on the emerging church movement, and includes a forthcoming book co-authored with Gerardo Marti, The Deconstructed Church: The Religious Identity and Negotiated Practices of Emerging Christianity, Oxford University Press, 2013. She is also researching religious change on the island of Ireland, with recent publications in this area in Doctrine and Life and Shared Space.

Dr Paul Gillespie is a journalist, academic and author. As a columnist and leader writer for The Irish Times and a researcher he has a special interest in European politics and political identities, British- Irish relations, comparative regionalism, EuroMed affairs and Europe-Asian relations. He is a senior research fellow adjunct at University College Dublin’s School of Politics and International Relations. He edited Britain’s European Question, The Issues for Ireland (Dublin 1996) and Blair’s Britain, England’s Europe (Dublin 2000). Recent academic publications are on civil society and Irish foreign policy, comparing Asian responses to the 1997-8 and 2008-11 financial crises, Ireland’s response to the euro zone crisis and the relations between the UK’s EU and internal devolution policies.

Ms Bronagh Hinds is the Chairperson of IBIS and a Senior Associate with DemocraShe. She is an Honorary Senior Research Practitioner in Queen's University School of Law, a member of the Gender Advisory Panel of the Office of the First and deputy First Minister and on the Board of the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation. Bronagh co-founded the Women’s Coalition and was in the negotiations for the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. During her career she has been a Senior Fellow in the Institute of Governance at Queen's and a director of several NGOs. A former Deputy Chief Commissioner of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, she also served as a Commissioner in the local government sector and as the Northern Ireland Commissioner for the UK Women's National Commission. Bronagh works on matters of equality, governance and peace-building for voluntary organisations, government bodies and international institutions. Bronagh was awarded UK Woman of Europe in 1998 and the International Women's Democracy Centre Global Democracy Award in 2002.

Rev Brian Kennaway is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, though he retired from active Ministry in January 2009, he is still serves on a number of Boards and Committees of the General Assembly. Brian has written extensively on Orangeism and Unionism for newspapers and journals, as well as being a contributor to the Dictionary of Irish Biography. His book The Orange Order: A Tradition Betrayed was published in 2006.

He has served on the Irish Government’s Inter-Departmental Committee, for the development of the Boyne Site and was appointed President of the Irish Association in 2009. He was appointed a member the Parades Commission by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for a three year term from January 2011.

Avila Kilmurray is Director of Policy & Strategy with the Global Fund for Community Foundations, with specific responsibility for the Global Alliance for Community Philanthropy. Avila was born in Dublin, Ireland, completing BA (History & Politics) University College Dublin. She was awarded a MA (International Relations) from Australian National University, and completed a PhD (Department of Law) in Queens University Belfast, where Avila was later awarded a Hon. Doctorate in Social Science. She is currently an Honorary Professor with the Transitional Justice Centre, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. Avila has worked in both community development and philanthropy in Northern Ireland since 1975. Over the period 1994-2014 she held the post of Director & CEO in the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland. Her work there included management of a number of programmes under the EU Peace & Reconciliation programmes, which involved measures for the inclusion of victims/survivors of violence and the re-integration of political ex-prisoners. Avila also served on the Board of the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council (1994-1997), and has been active in a range of conflict transformation and peacebuilding initiatives. Her longterm involvement in the Women’s Movement, commencing as a founder member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Aid Federation, resulted in Avila’s participation as a founder member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition in 1996. Avila served as a member of the Coalition’s Negotiating Team when it was successfully elected to the Northern Ireland Peace Talks that resulted in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. Over the 2000’s, Avila has shared the learning from the peace process with representatives from a number of conflict areas. She is currently a Board member of Conciliation Resources.

Avila has written extensively on community action, peacebuilding and women’s rights. She is a member of the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice & Peace, and is a founder member of the Foundations for Peace Network. She is currently engaged in research on the issue of philanthropy for conflict transformation and peacebuilding and is completing a book on community action in contested societies, drawing on her experience over forty years in Northern Ireland.

Mr Hugo MacNeill was educated at Blackrock College, Trinity College Dublin and Oxford University. He worked at Boston Consulting Group in London from 1985 before joining Goldman Sachs in 1988. Mr MacNeill returned to Dublin with Goldman in 2000. He is Chairman of the Ireland Funds and Vice Chairman of the British Irish Association. Mr MacNeill is also a board member of GOAL UK.

Mr Thomas Hunter Mc Gowan was appointed Chief Executive of InterTradeIreland in July 2012. InterTradeIreland supports SMEs across the island to identify and develop North/South trade and innovation opportunities.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, Thomas’s previous role was as Director of Finance at Kildare County Council. Prior to that, he spent 18 years at Swansea Cork Ferries Ltd as Managing Director. He was a board member of the Cork Chamber of Commerce and served for two terms on the board of Chambers Ireland.

Thomas is a graduate of University College Dublin and of University College Cork, and is a Chartered Company Secretary. He is based at the InterTradeIreland offices in Newry.

Professor Elizabeth Meehan is Professor Emerita in the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast (where she was Director of the Institute of Governance), and an honorary member of the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin.

Mr Vincent O'Doherty is a Company Director and former Chairman of Superquinn Ltd. He is a former President of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, a committee member of the British Irish Association and former Vice-Chairman of Cooperation Ireland. Professor Colin Scott is Principal, UCD College of Human Sciences and Professor of EU Regulation & Governance. He studied law at the London School of Economics and at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. Prior to his appointment at UCD in April 2006 he lectured at the University of Warwick and at the London School of Economics. Between 2001 and 2003 he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He was a research associate of the ESRC Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR), based at the London School of Economics from 2000-2010. He is Director of the UCD Centre for Regulation and Governance, established in 2010. He is a co-author of the Irish State Administration Database (2010). He was Programme Chair of ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance Biennial Conference, 'Regulation in the Age of Crisis', held in Dublin in June 2010. He is a co-editor of Legal Studies and has previously held editorial responsibilities with Law & Policy and the Modern Law Review. He was a Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges, from 2006-2009 where he taught on the interdisciplinary masters on European Law and Economic Analysis (ELEA). He was Vice Principal for Research and Innovation for the UCD College of Business and Law between 2006 and 2009 and Associate Dean of the UCD School of Law from 2010-2011 and Dean of Law at UCD, 2011-2014.

Mr Peter Sheridan is a former Assistant Chief Constable with the PSNI and (formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary). He retired from the police service in late 2008 having spent 32 years policing in NI. Before retiring he was responsible for the Crime Operations Department, which included serious and organised crime investigation including terrorist investigations.

He joined the peace-building charity Co-operation Ireland an all-island community organisation in 2008 as Chief Executive. The organisation was established in 1979, its aim was to build mutual respect and understanding between the peoples of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland through practical co-operation.

In addition to his role as CEO, Peter is an Equality Commissioner in NI and he is also a Commissioner with Londonderry Port and Harbour.

Peter is a graduate of Cambridge University, he attended the FBI Academy in 1999 and was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2008 for services to the community.

Professor Jennifer Todd is Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, and a former Director of the Institute for British-Irish Studies there. She is currently Associate Director of IBIS. She has researched and published extensively (individually and jointly) on the Northern Ireland conflict, ethnicity and ethnic conflict, and identity and identity and identity change. Her jointly authored Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland (Cambridge 1996) has become a classic in the field. Her recent work has been published inter alia, in Theory and Society, Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, Political Studies, West European Politics, and includes a set of articles on British and Irish elite making of the peace process, and on ordinary people’s perceptions of it. Her recent co-edited book on Ethnicity and Religion: Intersections and Comparisons, was published by Routledge in 2011. She is presently preparing a book manuscript comparing identity formation and change in the two parts of Ireland, and completing a new book on Northern Ireland with Joseph Ruane. Professor Ben Tonra is Jean Monnet Professor ad personam of European Foreign, Security and Defence Policy and Associate Professor of International Relations at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations. In UCD he teaches, researches and publishes in European foreign, security and defence policy, Irish foreign and security policy and International Relations theory. From 2005 to 2010 he was Director of the Graduate School at the UCD College of Human Sciences. Outside the university Ben serves as chair of the Royal Irish Academy's Standing Committee on International Affairs and is the Project Leader for a research programme in EU security and defence policy at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), Dublin. From 1997-1999 he was a Lecturer at the Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth and from 1993 to 1996 he was a Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Trinity College Dublin (TCD). From 1989-1991 he was a Research Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Washington DC.

Professor Patrick Paul Walsh took up the Chair in International Development Studies in the School of Politics and International Relations on July 1st 2007. He received a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1994. During 1992-2007 he worked in Trinity College Dublin. He left Trinity College Dublin as an Associate Professor, College Fellow and Dean (Principal) of Social and Human Sciences. He was a Visiting Professor at K.U. Leuven during 1997-1999 and a Research Scholar in the Department of Economics, Harvard University, during the academic year 2002-2003.

He is currently on the oversight committee of the UCD Geary Institute, a member of the external advisory board of the UCD Institute for British and Irish Studies and a member of the Social Science Committee for Science Europe. He coordinates UCDs HEA-Irish Aid Program of Strategic Cooperation 2007-2011. This Program runs a flagship UCD Ph.D. in Global Human Development, among other things. He also chairs the first ever joint degree between UCD and TCD, the TCD-UCD Masters in Development Practice that is part of a Global Network based at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and funded by the MacArthur Foundation. He is chair of the Academic Steering Committee of the Global Assocation. His professional activities include honorary secretary and editor of the Journal, the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland. This runs a related IRCHSS funded "Our Polestar is Truth" project based in the Long Room Hub in TCD.

While he still writes on Industrial and Transition Economics his current research in East Africa concerns itself with Socioeconomic outcomes in the EARNEST HIV/AIDS clinical trial, food security and election outcomes in Malawi 2009, and IRCHSS funded Patterns of Post-Conflict Resolution, among other things. Amongst other publications he has published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, Journal of Industrial Economics and the International Journal of Industrial Organization.